Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His latest book is The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world. He also writes about classical music for The Spectator.

I hate to link to a YouTube video posted by Infowars, the nutjob conspiracy website run by Alex Jones. But he has the footage (above) of a standoff between Nevada ranchers and the Federal Bureau of Land Management which the ranchers won. It's a surreal scene that could have been scripted by Jones, who sees the world in terms of a battle between freedom-loving Americans and – yup – THE NEW WORLD ORDER. Infowars is doing a pretty good job of spreading idiot conspiracy theories: here a bog-standard dispute over grazing rights is turned into a quasi-apocalyptic drama. I have (or had) American friends whose brains have been turned to mush by Mr Jones.

The BLM stopped rounding up rancher Cliven Bundy’s cattle and returned about 300 head of cattle to the open range to avoid the potential for violence…

The Old West-style controversy — centering on a family that has been ranching in Nevada since the 1800s — drew armed militia groups from across the country to the cattleman’s side this week, especially after a YouTube video captured a tussle teetering on violence between rangers and protesters.

The BLM said Bundy owed about $1 million in back fees because his cattle grazed on federal land.

What fascinates me here is that stuff on YouTube provoked armed militia to defend the cattlemen. Talk about the power of social media. As relations break down between red-state and blue-state America, will we see more of this sort of thing?